Compared to the threat of climate change, Brexit is a distraction
For an organisation that ran the inspiring “Keep it in the ground” campaign, it was a shame you didn’t make David Attenborough’s warning about the collapse of civilisation (Report, 4 December) the lead story on your front page. To have no mention anywhere of the 12 years we (at best) have to make any difference is a shocking omission. Climate change is the greatest issue the world is facing and readers can’t have the message highlighted enough.
Can I also ask that you don’t print any letters suggesting that all we need to do is turn our thermostat down and consume more responsibly? As Naomi Klein illustrates in This Changes Everything, the idea that climate change can be solved by personal responsibility alone is a fallacy (and one of the reasons why we are in this mess).
This issue requires policymakers everywhere to act now but they won’t do it if they don’t think people care, which is why it is the responsibility of the press to report the danger we are in.Rebecca FrickerLoughton, Essex
• The collapse of civilisation is on the horizon, David Attenborough told the UN’s annual climate conference in Poland. We are privileged that the first people’s seat at the conference was filled by one of our greatest national treasures. A few words from him in Blue Planet 2 led to the start of a transformation of our relationship with plastic.
But, this is the thin end of the wedge compared with the changes required to enable our children to live out their lives peacefully. We need to radically change our relationship with what we eat, how we heat our houses, where our power comes from and how we transport ourselves. Four years ago the economist Lord Stern said we need an effort that surpasses the combined efforts of the first and second world wars to tackle the approaching existential threat.
To meet the changes we need strong political leadership, nationally and locally to steer through this unprecedented time. I look around the local political landscape and see very few people from any party willing to meet the challenge.
Since this year’s IPCC report, both Bristol and Manchester have voted unanimously to declare a climate emergency. Our national government is focusing on Brexit, which is merely a distraction in the face of what is the greatest threat our species has ever faced.
We need a new generation of political leaders to emerge and put our collapsing climate at the heart of all their policies.Caspar HughesExeter, Devon
• Your editorial’s revelation (6
December) that the 2014-16 carbon reductions were the result of an economic slowdown that helped fuel the rise of populism appears daunting for future climate-change initiatives. However, rising carbon emissions and extreme rightwing electoral advances can be reversed. This will require a massive increase in economic activity arising from environmental policies that are clearly seen to improve prospects for the majority through an emphasis on green jobs in every community.
The obvious starting point is to make every home, commercial and industrial building energy efficient worldwide. In the US this is one of the central demands of the youngest of the new members of Congress, Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, with her call for a select committee for a green new deal, an initiative supported by Bernie Sanders and other elected progressives. Also key will be the rapid transition to renewables and low-carbon local transport systems.
To reduce political opposition to such a shift will require cash to help communities initially threatened by such measures, from scrappage schemes for polluting cars, subsidies for a rapid growth in electric public and private transport, through to job conversion schemes for Polish coal miners threatened by the latest climate talks.
The massive amount of money required should come from higher but fairer taxes, while hammering tax dodgers, with increased public expenditure and incentives for affluent savers to invest in such schemes. If this proves inadequate then green quantitative easing should also be introduced. The world really has no other choice.Colin HinesEast Twickenham, Middlesex
• We are hurtling towards a climate apocalypse (no hyperbole), and yet the one thing everyone can do is given surprisingly little publicity: change your energy supplier to one which only uses renewable energy.
We recently changed our supplier to one of several companies offering 100% renewable energy. The change-over was easy, and we now keep our house snuggly warm, comfortable in the knowledge that we are helping to save the planet. Please, everyone, change to a green supplier. Together we can save the world.Daniel Emlyn-JonesOxford
• Before claiming that the wheel, agriculture and gene-edited girls are “Monolith moments” (Letters, 5 December), remember that the monoliths in 2001: A Space Odyssey were of alien origin. While the monolith in the Dawn of Man sequence may or may not have triggered the use of weapons, the discovery of the second monolith, buried on the moon, served only to send a signal, possibly a warning, to the alien intelligence of mankind’s first steps into space. This led to the encounter with a monolith in Jupiter space, the star gate and astronaut Bowman’s journey “beyond the infinite” and his return to Earth as the star child. Alas, there is no sign today of any alien coming to help us avoid the collapse of civilisation predicted by David Attenborough at the UN climate change summit. We have to do that by ourselves.Graeme CottamPetersfield, Hampshire
• Rather than being “most worrying”, the UN report suggesting “that the relatively good performance of the years 2014-16 in reducing carbon emissions was the result of the economic slowdown” (Editorial, 6 December) indicates that we urgently need more economic slowdowns.David MurrayWallington, Surrey
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